That Clicking Noise Machines Make
by FlyingHampsterOfDoom
Summary: She figured her brother was crazy, and if he was going to go into flying ships, well, she might as well go into trying to keep them flying. Of course, being stranded on Palaven's moon wasn't something she'd planned on. Garrus/OC eventually.
1. Chapter 1

**So I don't really know what I'm doing with this, I just finished ME3 and, well. This happened. I wanted to **_**read**_** some fanfiction, but it was all Garrus/Shepard, and while that's my in-game OTP, I don't really like reading it. I'm more of an OC person, and it seemed like most of the OCs in this category were self-inserts, which **_**also**_** aren't my thing. So here I am, giving it a go.**

**Obviously, spoilers for ME3, but things will be changed up here and there for two reasons. One- I'm assuming most of us have played the game by now, and it's kind of boring reading what you already know happens. Two- I'm inserting a completely new character, that's got to change some things up, even though she's not OH MY GOD SO AWESOME like Shepard. **

**Yeah. Drop me a review/note and let me know if this is something I should continue. Because as it stands right now only the first two chapters are eating away at me, and I'd like to know if it's worth the hassle of wrangling the rest of the story into line.**

**Disclaimer: I bought all three games, that's as close to owning Mass Effect as I'll ever get. Unless they come out with action figures. Do they have those? I'd so buy Tali. And Miranda, just so I could have the pleasure of melting her. **

**_OoO_**

She didn't know what to do. She wasn't even supposed to be here, she was just a Citadel engineer, what the fuck were these people thinking taking her along?

What the fuck were they thinking by putting her in charge of medical? Sure, the entire squad was biotics, but she was an _engineer_, she knew how to fix machines, not people- and the soldiers around her knew better than anyone that biotics were not part machine. She couldn't fix their implants any better than she could stop them from dying of a bullet wound.

And now Captain Cassidey was dead. She felt like a damned butcher, blood up to her elbows, medi gel haphazardly thrown across the man's extensive wounds. What would the squad do now? This man was their hope- he'd been issuing orders up until he passed out from the pain. He was the one that ensured the emergency shields had been placed, told her to get working on the turrets that were currently helping to protect their downed shuttle. And now he was dead.

"Lynn! The middle turret's on the fritz again, and have you managed to get around whatever's causing the radio signal to stop transmitting?" Shit, she couldn't do this, _she couldn't_.

The medic, the real one, was dead- had died in the initial crash; the shield generators kept getting over-run and blinking out; the turrets were made shoddily with whatever parts she could scrap from the shuttle, and as such kept over-heating and sticking in their positions. They were a small squad as it was, but the damned husks kept coming, wave after wave, and the squad was getting smaller each moment. Already the shuttle was beginning to fill with wounded, people she was supposed to be helping. She didn't think any of them would make it through the night, but she was the best they had.

And then there were the two turian children that were becoming a pain in her ass. Saren- the poor kid had been named after the spectre, back when he wasn't a disgrace to the turians- was sixteen and fresh out of boot camp. He kept getting underfoot and insisting that he be put on the front lines. Every fiber of her being screamed that he shouldn't even be handling a gun, but the kid was a good shot and they could use him- he just didn't see the logic in staying back in the cover of the shuttle and picking off the enemy from a distance.

Then there was his sister Leerah, who wasn't even eight yet, and kept clinging to Lynn. Apparently female equaled motherly in the turian culture, too; something she normally would've found amusing, (she couldn't help but look at turians as if they were velociraptors, and imagining _them_ being motherly was humorous) but currently that meant that she had to deal with a distressed child. Not that she blamed the girl. The squad had been contacted by the Alliance and told to pick up some politician's family from Palaven- two children and a mother. The mother hadn't made it off the planet, and that had only been an hour ago.

"_Lynn!_ That turret needs to be fixed, we're not just dealing with husks anymore!"

"Sid, stay here god dammit- watch your sister and make sure none of those things get past the shields, _but do it from the shuttle_. If they make it past them you're all we've got protecting the wounded," Lynn shouted at the turian as she made her way outside, fixing him with a hard stare.

The noise outside the shuttle was intense, the screaming of the husks was unnerving, and the bullets whizzing by wasn't something she'd ever been used to. She'd seen battle before, but she had only ever been with air-support before. Making sure shields stayed functioning, that engines didn't stop working and that the main battery didn't over-heat; she kept the ships flying, and let the others kill the bastards trying to take them down. Now she was stuck making sure people didn't die from a combination of their wounds and her ineptitude; dodging bullets and firing back when she could.

The path to the downed turret felt like an eternity, despite their perimeter being not much larger than the small transport shuttle they'd taken. She kept low to the ground, one hand fruitlessly covering her head, and praying that the shields held out as she listened to the bullets hit against them, not even a foot from her position.

The turret was emitting blue sparks and trying to jerk itself out of its leftward-facing position, and before she'd even hit the dirt next to it she had her omnitool out trying to determine where the malfunction was. Piece of shit had been doing this on and off for the past fifteen minutes, but she hadn't gotten the opportunity to properly fix it.

Ignoring the sticky blood on her arms she reached into the gears just under the barrel of the turret, searching around for the piece she knew needed to be fixed; she just prayed it was fixable and wasn't something that needed to be replaced.

"_Son of a bitch!"_ She hit the ground hard as she saw a blue wave of energy make its way towards her, knowing even before her visor lit up with the information that her turret had just been hit with an overload, and that she'd been lucky to get out of the way in time. Surges of electricity usually weren't fun.

Popping her head up she scanned the area just past the shields for the one responsible, and with a feral growl she aimed her pistol in the thing's general direction. It looked like some sort of bizarre turian-geth hybrid, and she watched in horror as it appeared to be giving the husks around it light shielding.

"Take that thing out! _Take it out!" _She shouted as she continued to give herself cover fire. Her pistol wasn't the best, and she herself didn't have good enough aim to take out an enemy so far out. She just needed to keep it- and anything else out there- scuttling for cover long enough for her to see if this turret was fixable; or at least if it had any parts she could scavenge.

"GRENADE!" One of the men yelled, and she immediately rolled away from her turret- it was a complete loss anyway- and made a mad dash back into the shuttle. She had to keep those damned kids safe, and if the opposing force was starting to lob off grenades, then her night just got a hell of a lot worse.

She really didn't know what to do. The men on this squad weren't looking to her as a leader, but she _was_ the only one out of the lot of their sorry asses who knew how to fix the damned radio; the only one who could build the stupid, fucking _useless_ turrets. Hell, if she had enough time she might be able to get a drone going. Or, or maybe she could just blow up the shuttle. That might work.

Looking at the bent metal in frustration, she kicked the side of the shuttle before deciding that it was clearly a very bad idea to blow it up. Though it would be fun.

The hiss of the radio clipped to her belt brought her out of her musings, reminding her that she needed to work on whatever the problem _there_ was. If it was the radio she could hopefully fix it, if it was the reapers scrambling the signal then maybe, if she was very very lucky, she could find a way around it. If the comm tower was down she was fucked.

Leerah clung to her leg while she fiddled with the radio, trying to curb her cursing in the presence of the young girl. it was the comm tower. She'd have to go fix it if they had any chance of sending out a distress signal. And it would have to be soon- she doubted the turians fighting on Menae would be willing to lend a hand to Alliance under _normal_ circumstances, but with how screwed this entire situation was, she didn't think anyone would be able to answer it by morning. Their loss would be deemed acceptable if they held out much longer.

"Hahn!" Lynn shouted, absent-mindedly rubbing the thumb of her free hand across the eye ridges of Leerah.

"Yes?" Danny Hahn shouted back from the entrance of the shuttle, not bothering to spare a glance in at her as he continued to fire his gun, pausing intermittently to throw out a warp field.

"You said you took a couple engineering classes, right?" She yelled back at him over the sounds of the battle, trying to prepare the radio with a distress signal. Hopefully, if all went right, it would go out automatically as soon as the comm tower came back online.

"Yeah, for things like-"

"Can you keep the shield generators running?" She interrupted. She didn't need to know just how inept he was, it would only make her feel worse about having to leave.

"I- uh- yeah, maybe," this time he did look back at her, continuing to spray bullets without aiming, just adding more cover fire to the guys stationed directly behind the shields.

"Good. I'll show you what to watch out for, but I'm going to have to head out. The comm tower's down, and our signal won't get anywhere while it's still out for the count," Leerah squeezed at her knees, trying to get Lynn's attention.

"You can't leave us here! You _can't_!" She shouted, her talons scratching at the light armor on Lynn's legs.

"Shh, I'll be fine; back before the rescue party can get here, promise," she tried to soothe, but she could tell by the way her voice started to warble that the girl wouldn't believe her.

"I don't think it's a great idea, either, Lynn," Hahn said, looking nervous about being left to tend to the shields.

Disentangling herself from Leerah, she grabbed at Hahn's shoulder and walked towards the generators before speaking to him, "if we don't get this up, we won't get that signal out. If we don't get that signal out, we all- _those kids__included- _will die. Tell me again this is a bad idea. Because quite frankly it doesn't matter, it's our only choice," she looked him up and down, her arms crossed and her eyebrows scrunched together. "Just worry about the shields. They're going to try to overload these generators like they did with the turret, if that happens make sure the circuitry didn't melt. If it did you're pretty much fucked, because all you can do at that point is rebuild the whole damn thing."

It was while she was telling him how to fix damage done by bullets that her radio crackled to life, and a voice other than her pre-recorded distress call came through it.

"This is Commander Shepard of the SSV Normandy. We just received your distress call, but there was no location to pin you to attached," god damn it all, of course she hadn't finished the thing properly. And of course she would have to waste everyone's precious time trying to right it. Hopefully they'd still be there when she was done.

"Wait- Normandy? Is Jeff there? Is he still alive?" _Not the time_ she scolded herself. She had other people to worry about right now. "Sorry Commander, I'll get right on attaching our location," she added hastily as she walked towards a secluded area of the perimeter.

"What's your status?"

"Seven wounded, Captain Cassidey is dead; our shield generators can't hold out much longer and our shuttle is completely useless."

"Hold on, we'll be there soon."

"Thanks Commander, I'll let the guys know you said so, but I can't afford to be lied to right now. Do you think you'll actually be able to make it? Because these men need an actual medic, our turrets can't hold them back much longer, and we're running low on ammo. Our only viable option soon is going to be to rig the shuttle to explode, and pray it doesn't attract more of them."

"We'll be there."

It would take her ten minutes to fix the signal.

**_OoO_**

"Joker, any developments on the distress signal?" Shepard's voice boomed through the ship; he'd been down on Menae longer than he thought he would, and there hadn't been any word back from the woman he'd talked to earlier. That had been almost twenty minutes ago, and he was starting to fear the worst.

"Not yet Commander, I-" Joker was cut off but a sudden _ping_ on his dash, announcing that the signal now had a location attached. "Opening up communications, sir," Joker said before being prompted.

"Commander, you still with us?" Her voice barely sounded over an explosion in the background.

"Still here, hold on, we're coming to get you."

"Thanks, I don't think we'd be able to- _shit!" _She cut herself off, and in the background they heard what sounded like a child yelling out for someone named Lynn. "-_shit! Leerah, get in the shuttle!" _

"Lynn? Lynn you still there?" Shepard asked, already signaling for James and Garrus to meet him in the hangar.

"Yeah. Yeah. Hey, Commander, you never told me- Jeff still with you?" Her voice was rattled, and he wasn't liking how long it was going to take them to reach her position.

"Lynn? What the hell are you doing down there? You're an engineer, not some Alliance ground-soldier!" Joker sounded more upset than Shepard had ever heard him, and wanted to know more about the situation, but now really wasn't the time.

"Yeah, well, I was in the market for a new job, and since you never answer your calls or read your damned e-mails," she trailed off, before another explosion sounded in the background. "FUCK! What the hell is that thing? Kill it before it makes it past the shields! Hahn! Don't you dare stop manning the generators! Sid! I fucking _told you_ to stay in the shuttle! Concussive shots guys, Incendiary ammo if you've got it- these are things I shouldn't have to be telling you! Damnit! Shepard hurry-" the transmission cut off abruptly, and Joker slammed his fists on the sides of his chair.

"Garrus! James! You'd better be ready, we're leaving now!" Shepard shouted into the intercom, and was surprised by the hand that Joker placed on his arm.

"Commander. Just. Bring her back, ok? She's the only family I've got left."

This was news to Shepard, he'd never heard Joker talk about family before, but he nodded and responded with, "we'll bring her back. Don't worry Joker."

**_OoO_**

The carcass of a Brute lay smoking just before the shields of the small perimeter, and Shepard could see from his vantage point in the shuttle another one charging its way towards the small band of survivors. They would have to evacuate quickly.

"Get on!" He yelled to the nearest soldier as the shuttle hovered itself several feet off the ground.

Jumping into the fray, he made his way towards the large congregation of wounded, preparing to shuffle as many as he could back to safety.

"Sid! For a turian you are _the worst _at taking orders!" Lynn's voice yelled over everything- the roar of the shuttle, the screams of the husks, the rain of dirt. "Take your sister and get to that shuttle- _now! That's a fucking order, kid!" _

Lynn came into view then, dragging a soldier that looked so similar to Kaiden that it felt like a punch in the gut to Shepard. She struggled with the injured man until Garrus took it upon himself to lift the man like a sack of potatoes, shooting his way back to the shuttle. Lynn didn't stick around long, making her way back to the other injured men and scooping another up to the best of her ability.

It was five minutes of hell, and he could hear the Brute just outside of firing range, making its way closer.

"Lynn! I can't find Sid!" the turian child panicked, grasping onto Lynn as she made to jump out the shuttle.

"What? Leerah, stay here, I'll find him for you. Promise."

Saren wasn't hard to spot, he was one of only two turians out on the field, but never the less Lynn felt her heart seize for the thirty seconds it took her to spot him -_what if he's dead?_- she kept asking herself, kept telling herself that he was her responsibility and why hadn't she made sure he stayed on the shuttle?

"GRENADE!" Someone shouted, just as she saw him.

She ran to him, covering his body with hers, and never before had she wished to be a seven-foot tall, four-hundred pound man, but damn was Sid big. He was so much larger than her- why couldn't turains stay small until they reached twenty? As it was, her arms barely wound themselves around his shoulders, and his legs were left exposed by about a foot due to her short stature.

The grenade went off just as she tucked her head over his, covering her eyes from the explosion. She could feel the heat, and the sound of the shrapnel scraping against her armor's shields was painful, like nails on a chalkboard. Her shields weren't strong enough to withstand another assault like that, and so with no hesitance she jumped up, grabbing Sid by his neck armor and hauling him after her.

"SID! SID!" Leerah shouted, voice shrill and loud, piercing over the sound of the bullets that she had no clue as to how she was dodging.

Sid's body staggered behind her, and she felt warmth travel in a soft spray across her face and arm.

"SID! _LYNN!" _She didn't stop, she knew Saren was still alive, she could hear his screams; if she wanted to keep him alive they had to get to the shuttle.

With a slam, she collapsed onto the shuttle's floor, pulling Sid on top of her, cushioning his fall. The other turian, the one that had come with Shepard, was right behind her, and with a loud yell they were in the air, headed to the Normandy.

"Sid, Sid listen to me," Lynn whispered into him as she rolled him onto the ground, checking him over for the origin of the wound, "Sid don't fall asleep on me now." His eyes rolled back into his head, and Leerah screamed, trying to throw herself at her brother before Lynn grabbed the girl around her waist.

"No! No, Sid!"

"Does the Normandy have enough turian blood for him?" Lynn asked, crushing the girl's face into her neck in an attempt to get her to look away from her brother. Shepard and the man next to him exchanged looks, before looking at the girl in Lynn's arms and then back up at Lynn herself.

"We should," was all he would say.

**_OoO_**

**Alright so there's the first chapter. The next chapter (should you choose to accept it) should come out some time late tomorrow night. Drop me a line and let me know how you're feeling about it so far, I know it's kind of hard to tell about it all since there wasn't a whole ton to go off of yet. **

**Oh, and if you see any errors -**_**grammar/spelling/Mass Effect related-**_** let me know, I went through and edited everything I could find, but I somehow always miss at least one thing. It bothers me, so if you spot something let me know**


	2. Chapter 2

**Alright. So I've got the timeline down, now I've just got to wrestle an actual **_**plot**_** out of this sucker past chapter three. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go edit chapter one because it's really bothering me how many mistakes are in there. **

**Side-note: last chapter was my first time writing an action-esque sequence. Let me know how I did/what I can do better. Since Mass Effect has a lot of action and I'm going to have to learn fast.**

**_OoO_**

Only three had survived. Three. _Three._ She kept playing that number through her head, hoping that with repetition it would either sound better, or lose all meaning; either way it would hurt less. Either way she'd be able to rest, and stop thinking about how she had let so many of them down. Maybe if her turrets were built better, or if she had been able to increase the strength of the shields. Maybe if she had taken one of the optional medical classes that went beyond the basic knowledge all Alliance soldiers had to learn.

They had started out with twenty, and two shuttles. The second shuttle had been gunned down before they'd even managed to get off Palaven. It was the reason Saren and Leerah no longer had a mother, and why her squad dwindled down to thirteen before they'd even begun fighting. Unlucky thirteen. Murphy was a bitch, but at least he had a sick sense of humor and foreboding.

She tried not to focus on the chaos that had surrounded the Normandy's med bay just a short time ago, nor on the pang of fear and loathing and pure, simple _hurt_ that she felt every time she thought of Saren. Laying on a cot, in pain and weak. Too much blood loss, and a bullet that they couldn't remove without the risk of him bleeding out. It wouldn't be a problem if they had more turian blood, but as it stood they had used everything they had just simply trying to keep his heart pumping, and the other one- God, she couldn't even remember his name- hadn't been the correct type. There was a small corner of her brain where she was thankful, and she had to try and remember to thank him.

What would Leerah do if her brother died? Stuck on an alien ship, without a mother or brother, waiting until they could get back to the Citadel so she could be reunited with her father. A father that had too many responsibilities to give her the care she truly needed.

Lynn sat at the table in the mess hall, staring vacantly at the large windows leading into the med bay, and wishing that she had the power to do _something_, anything. She had screamed at the doctor- she felt bad about it now, but it hadn't been her highest point in life, and things were chaotic bordering on insanity at the time. Especially with the VI core smoking. The smell and the thickness of it had gotten in the way of properly treating the men that had survived long enough to make it into the room, and the insanity of everything kicked up a notch when Shepard came storming into the room, adding to the already cramped quarters and shouting to be overheard over the cacophony. He'd arrived out of the VI core a minute later with a shining robot that seemed, somehow, genuinely taken aback at the death and blood around her.

Lynn hadn't known that synthetics of _any_ kind could find puzzlement at their surroundings, or that odd type of concern that she had managed to convey. If she hadn't been screaming at the doctor to save Saren, to synthesize the blood he needed by using her own, then she would have found amusement in it. At the time, the only thing that registered was that the smoke was finally easing, and that the doctor was yelling back at her that it simply wasn't possible to 'turn human blood into turian blood.'

She knew that, of course, but she'd been so desperate- still was really- that she kept shouting that if Cerberus could bring someone _back from the dead_ then it bloody well **was** possible, and that if Dr. Chakwas didn't get her ass in gear and start working on it she'd shove a bullet through the woman's heart with her bare hands. She'd been promptly removed from the med bay after that, reduced to waiting on snippets of news about the men being treated.

And none of it had been good. They'd gotten five wounded, Saren included, and two uninjured members not including her or Leerah, onto the shuttle before the crash site had been over-run and they were forced to retreat. Now it was just down to Saren in that med bay; she'd watched as, over the last two hours, one of the wounded would be removed from the med bay in a body bag. She wasn't relishing the ceremony that the Normandy would no doubt hold before sending them out the airlock to their final resting place.

The small turian girl in her arms shifted slightly, still occasionally making soft chirping noises that sounded, more than anything Lynn had ever heard before, like heartache. She shifted the girl a little, before raising her left hand to softly caress her eye ridges. She didn't know turian anatomy or culture well, and hoped that she was at least doing something to comfort the child.

Another fifteen minutes went by with the two like that, before the elevators doors swished open and Shepard's turian friend rounded the corner, closely followed by Shepard himself. She raised her eyebrow at the pair, as it looked as if they wanted to talk with her.

"Dr. Chakwas has some news she'd like to relate to us," Shepard said, pausing slightly to eye Leerah with a meaningful look. Lynn nodded in understanding, knowing that he didn't want to alert the girl to the fact that this meeting would be about her brother. "Afterwards I'd like to hear what happened, as you're the only squad member that hasn't been debriefed yet. And Joker seems anxious to talk with you as well."

She sighed, nodding her head wearily. Of course her brother wanted to talk to her, he no doubt wanted to yell at her about how she wasn't supposed to be going out on missions. About how she was recklessly endangering herself, and how mom would turn in her grave if she knew that her baby girl was out killing people. And of course she'd have to debrief the Commander about the mission. After all, Alliance picking up a turian family on Palaven? And then crash landing on Menae, which would have been an obvious hot-spot to try and avoid while escaping the Reapers.

She had more pressing problems to concern her with at the moment, however, as she glanced down at Leerah who stared back up at her with the turian equivalent of saucer-sized eyes, shock and desperation radiating off of her. She looked around the hall, quickly spotting a man that seemed to be mindlessly walking around the perimeter.

"Hey!" She called, catching his attention before nodding her head in Leerah's direction, hoping her message was clear. By the look of trepidation on his face, he had understood completely what she wanted, "oh for fuck's sake," she whispered to herself, trying to shield Leerah's ears from her cursing out of pure instinct. It was fruitless, due to turian's hearing abilities, but she didn't know that.

"Come on, it's not like you can break her. Just, sit with her. Talk about something- you've got nieces or nephews, haven't you? Tell her an Earth fable, I'm sure she'd be interested in that," she rolled her eyes as he still looked unsure, and decided on simply thrusting the child into his arms and forcing him into agreeing.

This seemed to amuse both the Commander and the other turian- she really needed to learn his name- but she didn't particularly feel up to smiling back at them. Dr. Chakwas' news wouldn't be good, she was sure, and she wasn't looking forward to hearing it.

She prayed that by the end of the night their numbers wouldn't be dwindled to two survivors.

**_OoO_**

"Ms. Moreau," the doctor greeted her, and Lynn felt a small pang of guilt creep into her. The doctor looked exhausted, and all Lynn had done for the past several hours was be a pain in the ass. She shifted her stance uncomfortably, once again ignoring the itch of her still blood-stained arms.

"Dr. Chakwas, I-" she began, before being waved off by the older woman.

"I wish I had better news," she began, and Lynn tried to breathe around the rock that had become her heart. "Unfortunately all I'll be able to do is keep him stable until we reach the Citadel, but if we don't get there soon he won't make it. And the bullet will cause permanent damage to his left arm once he's stable enough to remove it. I felt it would be best for you to know, as his immediate family is a little... underage... to properly handle the news."

She'd been sucker-punched. She'd already known that there was nothing more the woman could do, and that any further treatment would have to be performed on the Citadel; and she was ecstatic to hear that he would survive that long- if the Normandy didn't face any problems along the way. She wasn't prepared to hear that he would have permanent damage, though, and felt the warm trail her tears made as she thought about it. He was only sixteen, just out of boot camp- he'd been trying to _help, _trying to make his father and his people proud of him. He didn't deserve to be rewarded with something like that.

"Ho- how extensive will the damage be?" She asked, clearing her throat and wiping her eyes with her arm, forgetting momentarily about the dried blood there, and succeeding in only making herself look as if she was crying blood. "Will he still be able to shoot a gun? Wield a knife? _Point?_" Her mind kept coming up with scenarios where he was reduced to helping from the back lines- handing out medi gel and extra heat sinks. God, that wasn't something that the strong turian she _knew_ he'd grow into would be able to handle. Not with any dignity, at least. Wounded in his first fight.

"It's difficult to say, it will depend on how long the bullet stays in there, and how much success they have at removing it."

Lynn felt herself drop at the words, her knees hitting the hard floor. It would be better to hear a definitive answer- even if it was the worst possible one- than to spend the foreseeable future to knowing, always worrying. She ran a hand through her hair, staring at the wheels on the cot in front of her. It wasn't until a taloned hand appeared in her vision that she even registered that she wasn't standing anymore, despite being able to feel the bruising pain in her knees and the coolness of the floor seeping into her bones.

She swallowed around the thick feeling in her throat, trying to pull herself together as she stared unknowingly at the turian offering her his hand. With a shallow sigh that felt more like her body trying to force her to start breathing again, she grasped his hand and tried not to let herself shake once she was standing again. She needed to pull herself together before she left the med bay, or Leerah would pick up on her distress.

"Okay," she said, still staring blankly ahead of her, still not registering that she was staring at the turian male before her. "Okay, what can I do?" She finally blinked, focusing in on her surroundings again; surprised that she was staring at blue armor and not the doctor.

"There's really nothing more that we can do. In an hour I'll know if his health with stay stable enough for visitors," _his sister_ was left unsaid, but everyone in the room knew that's who the doctor meant, "but until then we'll just have to hope for the best."

Hope for the best. She tried not to scoff, now wasn't the time for her to lose faith. If ever there was a time, it would've been just after the shuttle crashed, and yet she had maintained her faith throughout the entire hell that that battle had been. Granted, she hadn't had much time to second-guess anything, to question why, to feel abandoned. Not like she did now. Even still, if she could look her own death in the eye, if she could witness Captain Cassidey- a strong, brave, competent man- slip away from everything; well, she could hold her faith a little longer if she could do that.

Nodding, she thanked the doctor, being sure to inject apology into her tone- Dr. Chakwas may have been able to brush aside her threats and hysteria, but Lynn certainly wasn't.

"Commander, I believe you wanted me for a debriefing?" She focused her attention on Shepard now, trying to block out the light wheezing of the boy on the cot, the loud beeps of monitors hooked up to him. It wasn't proving very successful.

**_OoO_**

**I'm sorry it's so short. I've had family over all week and getting this much out was a huge hassle. I'll try and get more out soon- you know, the debriefing, the family discussion with Joker, and the eventual dropping off of the children at the Citadel. **

**I'm messing with the timeline a little tiny bit, because I'm trying to make her someone a turian would find worthy of being their friend/potential love interest, since they're a hard bunch to impress. But it's a bit difficult, because she is **_**most definitely**_** not as intense or strong as Shepard, so I've got to find ways other than just battle prowess to show off how strong she is.**

**ANYWAY! Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate it, and FYI: yesterday was my birthday.**

**You know what makes a good birthday/Easter gift? Reviews. Just a subtle hint**


	3. Chapter 3

**Wow! Thank you guys so much for the reviews- I've noticed that in the Mass Effect category they're hard to come by, so I appreciate them all the more.**

_**Especially **_**since I went through everyone's profiles and looked at what they'd written (since I get curious), and was nerd-excited to see that some of the stories that I've really liked were written by you guys! (Yes, even those of you who haven't written Mass Effect stories.)**

**Just wanted to say thank-you properly to everyone, and I hope this chapter is to your expectations!**

**_OoO_**

"So what was an engineer doing on a high-risk mission?" Shepard stared directly at her as he asked, right hand laid comfortably on top of the console he was leaning against. Lynn felt decidedly uncomfortable already, and they'd _just _entered Shepard's room for the debriefing. She couldn't decide if it was his calm yet intense demeanor that was throwing her off, or the fact that they were doing this in his room as apposed to a side-office.

"Well, that's not the question I thought you'd start out with," she answered, shifting on her feet uncomfortably. The aquarium behind her hummed softly, and the turian to her left seemed to finally be paying attention to her- he'd been almost painfully ignoring her presence since they'd left the med bay, and it was starting to grate on her nerves.

Hell, the whole day was just wearing her down, and at this point she was so tired that just about anything would make her upset. She'd have to keep that in mind while she dealt with the hellish debriefing process. And her brother.

"What, you wanted me to ask what the mission was? Why you were transporting two turian children? Why the Alliance was as Palaven to begin with?" He paused slightly, tilting his head to left, almost seeming to size up her reaction to his words, "I've already spoken with the two other members of your team- Danny Hahn and George Lebowitz- so your version of the mission can wait. What I'd like to know is why _you_ were there."

Alright, so she felt a bit stupid for not realizing that everything she had to say from here on out would just be rehashing to him. No wonder the turian looked so bored about the whole process. Though why he was even here for it she didn't know. Maybe it had something to do with Palaven being his planet or something.

"Ah, yeah, should've figured that one out myself," she scrunched her nose a bit, just to show him how stupid she felt, "well, the geth are really just machines, aren't they? I mean, they've got that 'spark'- or whatever you want to call it- that makes them something _more_ than just a machine, but essentially that's all they are. And while it's all well and good for the men to shoot them and be done with it, having someone along who understands machines struck me as a smart move. And..." She paused in her speech, shrugging slightly and hoping he wouldn't dig further. The rest of it made her feel a bit stupid, and she didn't want to appear even more of a dunce in front of _the_ Commander Shepard. She'd already get an ear full from her brother just for admitting that much, anything more and he'd lock her in a room that she couldn't hack her way out of.

"And?" He prompted, left hand lazily waving in her direction.

She shifted her stance again, looking everywhere but at him; she noticed with an idle detachment that the turian actually seemed interested in what else she had to say. Wouldn't find it interesting soon, though, more like stupid.

Sighing heavily, she let her arms flop to her sides in an 'what the hell, I'm already a moron' gesture, and said, "and, I figured the Reapers were essentially just machines, too, and you can't exactly go shooting _them_ now, can you? So I convinced a guy, who convinced his superior, that having me along would be beneficial. Even if I can't make them shoot-able or whatever, I thought 'well, why not? They're machines, and you're a fast learner, might pick something up along the way.' And so here I am, on the Normandy, after crashing on Menae."

"Yeah, so how'd you end up on Menae," he took her foolishness in stride, which really surprised her, so much so that she couldn't stop staring at him for several seconds. It wasn't until he cleared his throat that she realized she was supposed to answer his question.

"We just barely managed to get off Palaven with Leerah and Saren, the other shuttle- the one with their mother- didn't even make it off the planet. We didn't make it off unnoticed, though, and our pilot couldn't shake whatever it was that was chasing us- I know it wasn't a Reaper, so I'm just assuming it was geth. He never said, just kept yelling at me to give the shuttle more power. He had absolutely no idea what was within my capabilities of doing to a craft that was currently flying. One whose engine wasn't inside with me. I wish more pilots trained like my brother, with knowledge of _how_ their ship flies, instead of just how to fly it. Anyway, he flew too close to Menae, and before Captain Cassidey could tell him to go the other way, we were shot down. We lost our medic in the initial crash," she tried not to cross her arms after she'd finished talking, but it was hard not to want to put a barrier between her and the other two occupants.

"Yes, Hahn said something about you taking over medical, but didn't elaborate on it," the turian said, his talons tapping against his armor in a soft rhythm. That was it, she was tired of thinking of him as 'the turian.'

"I'm sorry, I don't know your name," she said instead of answering the question he was clearly trying to ask her. She turned her body to face him, absently noting that the two men had left her with clear access to the door- a way to make her feel safer, no doubt; so that she wouldn't subconsciously feel trapped. It was a tactic that clearly wasn't working.

"Garrus Vakarian," he answered, not offering his hand in a formal greeting. Well, she _had_ forgotten his name, so she wouldn't take offense. Besides, was that even how turians greeted one another? If she was going to be encountering more of them in social situations, she'd have to learn; maybe the Citadel would have a library of some sort.

And she was drifting, obviously she was more tired than she'd thought. Rubbing her hands against her eyes, she grimaced and quickly pulled them away once she remembered about the dried blood that she _still_ had on her arms. She should've found an excuse to head to the bathrooms earlier, because this was just disgusting.

She continued to stare at her hands for a couple of moments, before letting them drop to her sides, and with an sharp inhale of air she nodded her head, and addressed Garrus again, "yeah. Yeah I was the replacement medic. I don't for the life of me know why- best I can figure is that the entire squad was made up of biotics, and they thought I'd at least know something. More than most of them, at least. I don't, obviously," she looked down at her hands again, before continuing, still eyeing the flaking blood, "didn't want to tell them that, though. They were already dealing with enough, trying to keep the perimeter secure. And since I'm not the best shot, I figured I'd be getting in the way if I tried to help clear the area. Most I could do was apply medi gel and try to keep the shields running."

She gnawed at her lip, trying not to imagine just how many people's blood she had on her hands, in a quite literal sense.

"Here," a wet wash cloth was placed into one of her hands, and Shepard took a step back once she grasped onto it. "I don't think Joker would like to see you like this for the reunion," he joked, and even then he sounded sombre.

"So we know why you were there, and how you ended up there, but now I have to hear your side of the story on why the Alliance was picking up turian children in the first place. I was under the assumption that people were already being shuttled off the planet?"

"Yeah," she began quietly, a harsh contrast to the frantic and painful scrubbing she was doing to her left arm, "but someone- I don't know who, that's something you'd have to ask Captain Cassidey, but unfortunately can't- was contacted by a turian politician on the Citadel. He offered to use whatever power he had to help Earth and the Alliance if we would get his family out. I think he was worried that they weren't going to be evacuated soon enough. I'm sure you know, sir, that we're in desperate need of any help we can get. So the Alliance sent a team of twenty, and I managed to wiggle my way on because I couldn't pass on the opportunity to study the Reapers."

She had moved on to her right arm, but could already see several spots on her left that she'd missed.

"Alright. I think that's all we really need to ask. I'd suggest getting the blood off your face before seeing Joker," Shepard added, not unkindly, despite how harsh the words themselves sounded.

"Actually, I've got one more question," Garrus interrupted her departure, and she tried not show how anxious she really was to leave. "Hahn said that in addition to being the medic, you were also going to try and fix the comm tower once you realized it was down."

Lynn stared at him, not understand where the question was, "yes?" She settled on saying, allowing her confusion to permeate the simple word.

"So you were going to leave your men without a medic and without someone who could keep the shields up?"

She didn't know him well enough to be able to determine if he thought she had made a bad choice by deciding to leave, or if he was looking for her justification in doing so. Either way, she settled herself firmly on the pissed-off end of the spectrum. How dare he?

"I had just spent the last hour watching my men die, because I couldn't do a damned thing to help them besides slap on some medi gel and tell them they were going to be fine. I had just spent that entire time dodging bullet and repairing generators and building those- those _fucking useless pieces of shit_ that don't even _deserve_ to be called turrets. All the while praying that the problem with the radio wasn't the comm tower; that it was something fixable like the radio needing a new wire or a scrambled signal that I could hack around. I has spent the past hour yelling at Sid to stop trying to leave the shuttle, and carting Leerah away from the dying men. She's _eight_ for fuck's sake! So yeah, when the tower was down, and it needed to be repaired, I was going to go. Because none of the others would've known what to do, and we needed to get the distress signal out, or _every single one of them_ would die. It was either leave them without a piss-poor medic and hope that Hahn could repair the generators, or watch everyone slowly die over the night. Now you tell me, which choice was the better one? Because I sure as hell didn't want to have to make it," she was trying not to suck in breaths at a rapid pace, trying to ease her grip on the wet rag in her hand, trying not march up to the damned turian and claw his eyes out for even _suggesting_ that she would do something to hurt those kids.

His mandibles flared, and his eyes bore into hers with... With amusement. _What the hell just happened?_ She thought to herself, still trying to restrain the urge to hurt him.

"Well, that explains why Lebowitz kept speaking about you as if you were his CO, despite the fact that he out ranks you," he said, and it sounded as if he was trying to restrain laughter. Son of a bitch, she'd just let her emotions get the better of her- _again_- obviously she needed to sleep, and soon. She was never normally this easy to rile up; of course she'd also never watched her entire squad die before, so semantics.

She was starting to get worried about how flippantly she was taking things. Maybe she should have a chat with Dr. Chakwas.

"Alright Garrus, if you're done trying to make her resort to violence, I think she deserves so go see her brother," Shepard cut in, effectively ridding the room of the tension that had begun to fill it.

With a relieved sigh, Lynn placed the wet rag against her right eye, before nodding at Garrus in something resembling acceptance, even if it was a bit terse. "Thank you sir. Though I don't think it'll be a happy reunion. If you don't see me tomorrow check the locked rooms," and with that she left his room and headed for the elevator.

**_OoO_**

**So I was supposed to get her reunion with Joker in here as well, but answering all of those questions took **_**forever**_**. I know they're really mundane answers, so I hope I managed to make it at least somewhat interesting. And I'm also liking how she's got a back bone, that wasn't something I'd really planned on her having. In fact, the only planned thing she had was her complete devotion to Leerah and Saren, I figured being protective of children was a good quality to have in anyone, but something held especially high in turian culture. Them being predators and all.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Sorry it took so long to update- I was sick for a while, and then had to catch up on the school work I missed. Anyway, after this chapter gets posted I'm going back to edit the previous. Didn't realize just how **_**horrible**_** it was when I posted. **

**_OoO_**

"Was that really necessary, Garrus?" Shepard couldn't quite hold back the laughter in his voice, even as he tried to look stern.

"Shepard, don't pretend to be innocent with me- we both know the only reason you let me in on this debriefing process is because you _wanted_ me to ask those questions. Saves you from looking like an ass," Garrus flared his mandibles just slightly as he talked, making his subharmonics clash slightly - a smirk if Shepard had ever heard one. "Besides, it didn't make sense. The other two, Hahn and Lewobitz, talked about her as if she was their commanding officer, but in the med bay, she didn't seem to spare any of the wounded a second thought- just kept yelling about that turian child, Sid or Saren or whatever his name is."

"Damn, well I should've known there wasn't hiding anything from you. Next time I'll have to give you note cards or something though; you were asking the _completely wrong_ questions," he said, hoping the human concept of note cards would translate well.

"Commander Shepard, secret renegade," Garrus rumbled a laugh, making his way towards the door.

**_OoO_**

Lynn felt extremely guilty for not going back to Leerah after her debriefing with the Commander, but she'd already put off talking with her brother for long enough. Any longer and he'd probably ignore anything she had to say entirely and (somehow) manage to pull enough strings to get her permanently grounded. Safe.

With a heavy sigh, she walked off the elevator, in no better condition to enjoy the CIC this time around than she had been the last time she'd passed through.

"What was the point in having a mute button installed into the Normandy if you were just going to override it? I don't understand how that's an offensive question, EDI," her brother's voice washed over her the closer she got, and she could hear the slight bit of panic in it.

"It sounds as if you do not enjoy speaking with me, Jeff, and I do not much like the implication of your wishing to know how to make mute a permanent setting," ah, that was the VI's voice; the VI with a distinctly _female _voice and _female_ body. No wonder her brother was panicking, he was complete rubbish at handling irate women. But... VI weren't capable of emotions- occasionally emulating them, but that's as far as the Council would ever let it go.

"I was unaware that the Alliance had approved an AI," she announced her presence with the slight accusation, hoping to throw her brother into the offensive before he could begin berating her for being on Menae.

And it seemed to work, judging by the panic she could see building on his face. She repressed a giggle at the thought of him worrying about having to deal with _two_ angry women.

"I was built by Cerberus before the Alliance took control of the Normandy; the crew felt it prudent to let them continue thinking I was a simple VI," Lynn could see why her brother liked EDI, though she had to wonder if he'd like her just as much if she didn't have such _feminine_ features and was instead, say- more male? Something to tease him about in the future, perhaps.

"Yes, I can see the need for that, though I don't quite understand why Cerberus felt the need for an AI. Perhaps, when things have calmed down, you would care to explain to me?" She paused, only then realizing she hadn't properly introduced herself, "oh! Sorry, I'm Lynn Moreau, Jeff's sister- and I'm assuming you're EDI? I heard you two talking before introducing myself," she offered lamely, holding out her hand for the AI to shake. EDI stared at her hand for a moment, before carefully imitating Lynn's gesture, not really knowing what to do from there.

"I have seen humans do this before- shaking hands?- but I am new to this body, I don't know the proper procedure for this social interaction; am I supposed to initiate the hand shake, or is the one offering supposed to?" Trying hard not to laugh, because she didn't want EDI to get the wrong idea, she clasped their hands together and shook them once before letting go.

"Uh, well, when someone offers their hand, you usually just clasp it and shake once or twice; there's more complex social minutia, but I don't think you'll have to worry about that," she appraised the AI in front of her for a moment, tilting her head to the side slightly, "how about a mutual exchange of information? I ever have questions about how you work, I'll ask- you ever have questions about how humans work, you can ask me." Lynn nodded her head at this, as if already acknowledging EDI's acceptance, and turned to her brother, who looked as if he'd managed to dodge a bullet.

"No, that's a terrible idea! You'll be telling EDI all sorts of ridiculous things that are completely untrue," he shifted his chair around to face them both better.

"What, like that time you were ten and tried to climb up-"

"_Completely untrue things!_" He interrupted, Lynn's wide smile promising of future embarrassment. "And that's not really what I wanted to talk with you about, anyway; not after seeing you for the first time in over two years- and especially not after having my CO save your ass from Menae." He narrowed his gaze at her, and Lynn tried not to cross her arms or shuffle her feet.

"Yes, well, two years is a long time to be out of contact, Jeff. I... I needed to change some things in my life around, and then this war happened, and I was needed," she refused to back down from this. Sure, she felt stupid explaining it to 'The Savior of the Citadel, Commander Shepard,' and his turian friend Garrus- had she even gotten his last name? _Not the time for wandering thoughts,- _but she'd be damned if she'd let her brother tear her down. He didn't have the right to anymore; didn't have the right to tell her she couldn't do what she thought was right because _he_ thought it was stupid.

He'd joined with Cerberus (albeit it was more like joining up with Shepard but she wasn't going to get into semantics). He'd stopped returning her messages- vid or written- and he'd stopped sending her updates. Hell, he hadn't even told her he was _alive_ after the Normandy SR-1 had been destroyed. So he could just take his opinions and, and... and keep them to himself. She wasn't going to let that large, painful gap in her soul destroy the chance she had at being with her brother right now. At the end of the galaxy. Because he could die, she knew that all too well, and because she could die- Menae hadn't been her first close call, just the first where she felt _responsible_. And because the galaxy was being torn apart around them and she had nightmares about the dark spaces between stars lighting up in flames and Reapers.

"Lynn, I just," he sighed, slumping further back into his chair and twitching his hand across his "Alliance Official" baseball cap. "You're not safe, and I don't like it," he finished, flopping his hand back down onto his armrest.

"Well it's not like I'm throwing myself off buildings or staring down a Reaper with nothing but a shotgun! Jesus Jeff, it's as if you've forgotten that I can take anything down- remember that time you were being chased by a goose? That was a good dinner we all had, wasn't it?" She snapped her teeth at him in a way that would have been odd to anyone else, but made Jeff start laughing.

"Just let an older brother worry for his sister, would you? And I promise not to mention mom," he added quietly, both siblings not quite able to reach the other's eyes.

"Yeah, well I can't stop you, but I won't turn it away either," she huffed out a quiet sigh, glancing towards the elevator and noticing that Garrus was just getting off. She still had to thank him. "I've got to get back down to medbay, but I'll talk more once I've gotten things back to manageable, okay?" She rubbed the back of her neck, hoping that it didn't sound as if she was pushing him away. She'd barely even talked to her two-years-gone brother for five minutes; that couldn't be a good sign, could it? She used to be able to say anything, for hours, and now here she was running away.

She walked quickly down the walkway leading back into the CIC, trying to make her way to the elevator before either her conscience or her brother could call her back. Half way towards the galaxy map, however, Garrus caught her attention.

He wasn't waving her over, or staring a hole into her head until she noticed him- hell, he didn't even look as if he knew she was there. But she had to thank him, and he had annoyed her, and so somehow those two traits combined into a constant _Garrus is here_ notification. With another tired huff she approached him; best to get this unpleasant business over with now.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Her brother's voice shouted from the cockpit, and she was so startled by his barking tone that she almost twisted her ankle as she turned back towards him.

They stared at each other for a moment before Lynn got tired of just standing there, "what? I was walking." Clearly her time away from her brother had been detrimental to his mental health.

"Yeah! With- with _hips_- and you've never- you- _it's like you're a girl."_

Lynn continued to stare at him for a moment, completely perplexed, before realization hit and she felt as if she was on the verge of world-ending mortification.

"Er, yeah. I store my shotgun at the small of my back, and it's just- um- just easier to walk that way. Must've become a habit," she didn't look at him- _her brother thought she walked too suggestively and oh God this was mortifying- _but instead at the logo on his cap.

"Shotguns! You're using shotguns now! Lynn you're not even supposed to be _using_ guns! Why would you need one? They've got shit long-range capabilities, you're not getting in close enough to actually use it, are you?"

"Well the turrets aren't exactly going to help me if they're taken down, are they? And we both know I'm shit at using a pistol, you were there when I had to test in order to be approved for one. So I figured, hey, shotgun, no real aiming necessary there, not when the person's close enough for me to need to use it," she shrugged her shoulders in an attempt to get rid of the conversation entirely. How that would work, she didn't know, but she wasn't above trying it out.

"See, I could understand why you were on Menae. That was not only a good power grab for the Alliance, but it involved kids. So I didn't question it. But you're talking now as if you're going back out, as if you've already _been_ out, and I don't think it's such a great idea. You're just an engineer, Lynn, you're supposed to be modifying shielding and thrusters for ships, not trying to take back bases or fixing downed comm towers."

"But that's where I'm needed! The only engineers we've got out there right now are either Cerberus- _Cerberus Jeff!- _or soldiers that took a couple classes and wouldn't know how to fix a downed shield generator if their life depended on it- _which is does._ The Alliance is working on it; over the past year I've seen people out in the field that really do know what they're doing, but until then it's up to people like me to go out and do what they can."

They both paused for a minute, trying to figure out how they had gone from her swaying her hips when she walked, to butting heads on how much danger she was putting herself in.

"I want you to stay on the Citadel, please, Lynn. I don't... You can't go back to these types of missions. Let me talk to some people, hell, I'm sure Shepard wouldn't mind pulling a few of his Specter-only strings; I'll have you doing important work, but _from the Citadel,"_ the pleading tone in his voice almost broke her, but she wouldn't back down.

"No. And don't you dare do it behind me back, either. I love you Jeff, but you lost the right to tell me what to do a long time ago, and if I'm needed for a mission, I'm going," they looked at each other for a long moment, before Jeff broke eye contact and nodded slightly. "I won't do anything stupid- someone's got to save you from your own stupidity, and nobody else'll do it if I'm not around." Her throat tightened traitorously at the word 'around'- they both knew she meant _if I die, when I die, I will die. _They both knew she wasn't going to be asked to go on the easy missions, either, not with her expert knowledge of most things tech. She'd be sent on more missions like Menae, now that she'd pushed that door open with her subtle requests; now that she'd shown what she could get done.

**_OoO_**

**So this is the most logical spot to end this chapter, and the next one will have more Garrus in it, I swear. Honestly, she was already supposed to be "stuck" on the Citadel by this chapter, but **_**damn**_** is she wordy. Anyway, hopefully you like it**


End file.
